Priority Area: Reimagining Policy

With support of Open Society Foundations, NSI partnered with researchers in thirteen national jurisdictions – Canada, the U.S., Peru, Chile, UK, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Israel, Australia, Zambia, South Africa, and India to apply the “Legal Capacity Inclusion Lens” developed by NSI to critically examine decision-making laws in each jurisdiction. Most were guardianship laws, but others were considered as well including marriage law, health care consent, and mental health law. An extensive report was published on the application of the lens to select federal and provincial/territorial sources of law in Canada[i] and a summary of findings on applying the methodology in the international study was also prepared.

This partnership with Inclusion Canada and community partners was undertaken to develop practical tools to assist community organizations in advancing supported decision making in policy and practice. The project resulted in a framework to guide transforming practice at the community level and tools to assess for community readiness to adopt supported decision making in practice. For more information see https://irisinstitute.ca/resource/the-equal-right-to-decide-tools-for-community-change/.